Your Family History Website

[Rove]

I dont' know if this topic has been mentioned in B-G.

I am interested in your comments.

For those of you who have created your F.H. Website at some host whether its a paid Site or a free Site. Is your Site a 'password protected; Site or open to the Web ?

Do you believe and prefer that your Site be 'password protected' or are you happy to have your F.H. Site open to all visitors ?

I presently have three F.H. Sites in Rootsweb and Genealogy.com plus two 'password protected' Sites in MyFamily.com. These are paid Sites.

My two Sites at MyFamily.com are close to five years old. I am not in favour of a 'password protected' Site. How about you ?

[Lindad]

I have a Tribal Pages website and have chosen to pay a fairly nominal amount each year to avoid flashing adverts. This is now password protected as it is my complete tree, with some living relatives visible and some hidden.

I also have PART of my tree uploaded to GenesReunited. This includes no living relatives apart from myself, and only those names that I am interested in being contacted about.

If someone contact me who appears to have a genuine link, I am happy to pass on the Tribal Pages password... and I'm happy for them to pass the password on to others who may be interested. I'm not particularly precious about my research. I am happy to share it and am not overly worried about distant relatives 'stealing' my work. However, every so often, I change the password which gets rid of those who have not obtained it legitimately. I have a group email set up and anyone I am in regular contact with receives an email notifying them of the change of password.

All this works well for me.

[VivSonntag]

I'm in favour of free access family websites, along similar lines to how they work on Genesreunited. It only takes a few minutes to reply to any email and let people know what information you have on a particular person. Its then your choice if you want to extend them an invitiation to contact you directly. I have had many emails through Genes, mostly shots in the dark, but some have proved very fruitful. After all, we are all enjoying the same hobby, and if we can help someone out, its all for the greater good.

Regards

Viv

[JS Lewis]

I too have opted for personal family history web sites.
I have found the 'tribal pages' set up to be ideal.
A professional look of your site and the option to lock up with a password. The options to hide living persons (&/or their dates) and splendid printable charts upto 9 generations, if you pay up what is in my opinion a reasonable fee of £12 and that includes ads being removed.

I'd like to point out that I dont work for tribal pages! - Im just satisfied! :-)
Interesting to point out however, that the site appears ad-free initially & that ads only appear after you've uploaded so much info. But hey, we've all got to make a living I guess.

[mikem]

I agree that, unless there's very good reason not to, Family web site should be accessible to all. It helps both the site publisher and other people in their search for information so it's a two way trade. My own site includes family names mainly from the Manchester area (so far). Some of the names are:

MORETON
BURGESS
HALL
INNS

You can view the site at:

http://www.micksmoans.toucansurf.com/pafx3.htm

If you think you may be linked to the families on the site, you can contact me via this forum.

[julianb]

I have a "public" family history website. I have only provided limited details about the living. I have considered a "Password protected" site, but came to the conclusion that there was not enough interest in my family to justify it. Where there is a specific interest by family members, we can pick it up by e-mail or letter.

JULIAN

[Burrow Digger]

I have 2 trees up at Tribal pages - neither of them are password protected. I also have one tree up on a personal family website at Rootschat.

I was happy with Tribal Pages until they changed to being a paid site and shut the free users out - I cant use half the feathures until I pay $20 for a year. I choose not to pay, but I would like to remove my trees from Tribal pages eventually.

BD

[Blain]

I think the way that phpgedview works is fine, if the person is alive, then their information is masked to none members, but available to people who have signed up.

[janieg]

I have my family tree on Genes reunited and have found it invaluable it is a nominal fee per year and you can choose wether or not to let a person view your tree.
Surely the object of the exercise is to get as many people interested in the family name you are looking for as possible otherwise why put it on a website at all write it up in a book.
Personal data these days can be got by a small payment to 192.com or one of the other search agencies in the web so there is no point in hiding info from interested parties, obviously consent is vital from living rellies though if you want to include very personal details, but address's or phone numbers are an obvious no no.
Janie

[Beth86]

I only have my tree uploaded on ancestry.

But I'm more than happy for those who have an interest in the surnames I'm interested in to contact me.

I currently share my mothers account on ancestry because I can't afford the fee to have one of my own, but then again what is the point in paying double when we are both not on it all of the time.

At the moment I'm trying to locate some living relatives in order to try and obtain pictures of my family, as I have none. (My Auntie destroyed them because she didn't want them about 10 years ago. So we don't even have photos of my father from when he was young.)

But I'm definitely willing to share information with distant relatives if it helps each of us find out things we never knew.

[Rove]

At the moment I'm trying to locate some living relatives in order to try and obtain pictures of my family, as I have none. (My Auntie destroyed them because she didn't want them about 10 years ago. So we don't even have photos of my father from when he was young.)


Hi Beth86

Did your father ever had a passport ?

You can apply to the Passport Office if he did have a passport.

[Mutley]

I have a Tribal Pages Tree but I have password protected it. The reason being is that it does include a lot of living relatives. It is for family use only and I can add information for those all around the world to view or print as they wish. Otherwise I would spend all my time sending emails.

The younger children in the family 10 - 15 years are very interested in cousins and relationships. They love clicking on themselves and finding how a distant relative fits in. I believe this is encouraging them to look at the tree as a whole and hopefully gain an interest in the subject. I have included as many bells and whistles as possible to make the subject interesting for them. (I've also earned a lot of brownie points as they think I am very clever to set it all up!!!)

I don't mind giving the password to others researching the same tree but I am not using it to find them. I would rather find the information myself.